April 26, 2012

Central and South America continue to be profitable markets for US beef and pork exports as pork exports were up 23% in value (US$34.8 million) and beef exports had nearly doubled in value (US$21.8 million) over the record pace of 2011.

Dan Halstrom, US Meat Export Federation (USMEF), senior vice president for marketing and communications, in an audio report attributed growth in the region its evolution into a market that imports higher-quality, valued-added US pork and beef cuts. He said this is a strong indication that USMEF's efforts to educate importers, retailers and restaurateurs in the region about the quality and diversity of US red meat have worked.

In pork, USMEF is seeing sales of commodity items such as bone-in picnics and bone-in hams, but the "exciting" thing is the rise in purchases of value-added items such as boneless hams, boneless loins and St. Louis-style ribs. Similarly, on the beef side the organization is seeing a move to the chuck roll and underutilised cuts from the chuck roll.

"Really what we thought of not too long ago as strictly a commodity region it's turning into a value-added one very quickly," Halstrom said.